Added wedding photos
Saturday December 9th, 2006 Author: Dag Joar
Today I have added a few photos from the wedding under the Pictures section. We have an enormous amount of photos from the wedding, and these are just a selected few from our photographer Robert Kerr-Morgan. We love the photos he has taken.
Wedding information added
Tuesday September 5th, 2006 Author: Dag Joar
We added some practical information for people coming to our wedding on November 10th 2006. You can find the information here
Going to Sydney, plus site updates
Thursday June 29th, 2006 Author: Dag Joar
This weekend we are going to drive down to Sydney for Petra and Dylan's wedding. They are getting married on saturday, and we are planning to drive down tomorrow. Since we both work tomorrow we'll probably have to start late, and stop over somewhere on the way down. Right now we are looking into accomodation in Port Macquarie. Germany and Argentina are playing their football World Cup semi-final at 1 in the morning, and I would prefer this since I could watch the match in the hotel/motel room :)
Christina went down there by plane last weekend for Petra's hensnight. We were both supposed to go down there together in the car originally. However, my best mate down here, Joe, had his farewell party on saturday, and I opt'ed for staying up here, going to Brisbane for his party instead. We had a great time at Normanby's, and crashed over at Mel's parent's place. Melanie is Joe's girlfriend, that he is taking with him when he now moves back to London to support Charlton.
I have also done some work on the website. I have added buttons for Previous and next images for easier navigation in the photo albums on this site. I have also added a few more photos.
Adding some new photos
Monday June 26th, 2006 Author: Dag Joar
I added quite a few photos today under the Pictures section. Since it has been a while since I added any photos, they are from random occasions within the last nine months.
Our Very First Car
Monday September 19th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
We bought a car on tuesday. It is our very first car, since none of us have never owned our own car before. It is a Holden Commodore Acclaim, 95 model. It has only done 95.000 kilometers, and is in excellent condition. Christina's brother in law, Nick, came with us to have a look at it. He is a car mechanic, and we feel a lot safer having him green-lighting the car for us. Especially since we have absolutely no clue about cars.
We have added a couple of photos of the car in the pictures section. Have a look! :)
Byron Bay Trip
Friday July 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
We rented a small car today that we will use to go for a small trip to Byron Bay tomorrow. We haven't gotten around very much since we came down here. You pretty much need a car to get to see things more than 10 kilometers away from from where you live. Luckily it is very cheap to hire cars down here compared to home in Norway. And we also chose the smallest car they had. So now we have a Hyundai Getz at our disposal until monday :)
This week was supposed to Christina's week off from work, but instead they have overloaded her with extra work. She has had sleepover shifts wednesday, thursday and friday. And she also works sunday..
It has been very warm here lately for winter time. I'm not sure how many degrees it has been, but it has certainly gotten alot warmer than a few weeks ago. Walking around in a t-shirt in the city, and it gets too hot. I'm not complaining tho'. July is supposed to be the coldest month of the year.
Byron Bay is a small hippie-town about an hour and a half south of Surfers Paradise where we live. We have been there once before last time I was down here, just after we met. And there's a couple of photos of us there under the Australia 2002 photo album.
Waiting for TNT Express
Thursday July 7th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
For the third day in a row now I have to wait at home for a delivery guy from TNT Express. Every day they have told me that he will be coming, but they cannot tell me at what time. It is now more than a week since the parcel was sent from Norway, and it would probably have been here already if it was sent by normal postage. Instead lots of money was paid for a supposed express 2 day delivery. And the worst thing with all services like this is that they are never able to tell you a specific time of day when you have to be home. So basically you are just stuck at home waiting for them do show up..
Tax Confusion
Wednesday July 6th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
As June 30th was end of the financial year in Australia, I have to hand in my tax report. This whole tax-thing has been a long battle with the norwegian tax authorities to let go of my money, as I am now supposed to tax down here in Australia. Today I have finally worked out all the bits and pieces that I need for my tax report. Like Norway, Australia now lets you do your tax electronically, which is convenient for me. Unlike Norway however, Australia promises to have the results ready (tax returns, or bill) within 14 days from lodgement. This is good, and certainly something Norway should be able to learn from.
Christina has been all day at a first aid course she needs for work, and she is now at work. Because of her studies/work, and my work at nighttime, we don't always get alot of time together. Tomorrow, friday and saturday however we will have all day together (except nighttime when I work). Saturday we are going to Reading Cinemas in Harbour Town. They have a cinema with big Lazy-Boy type chairs where you can order food and beverages. I have never been to this particular theatre before, so it will be cool. It is going to be kindof a small celebration of my birthday, because we are both working on my actual birthday.
Other than that it is quite obvious to me that most people in Norway has holidays now, since I'm not getting any phonecalls from customers. This is quite good as it lets me focus more on my development. Working on some C code right now, haven't done that for a few years, so I need all the time I can get.
Spacewalker
Monday July 4th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Saturday night we went to a restaurant called Spacewalker here in Surfers. It was for a birthday-party for one of Christina's good friends, Hetty. The restaurant is themed around space-things such as the creation of the universe, the creation of our solar system and so on. You enter through a door that takes you into a dark rotating elevator. Then you get to choose one out of three adventures that you can do before you are seated for your meal. Our choice involved a movie, some jumping on a trampoline (the best part:), and lots of space-watching things.
The food was extremely good there, and we had a really good time. We were a little in a hurry tho' because we had a second birthday-party we had promised to attend that night. Renée's younger sister Chantell's 21st. It was a little more upbeat and younger than the restaurant, as it was set in a car-fixing shop/garage, with a dj playing music.
We were home around 2 am, which was a little late for Christina and Gemma that had to get up before 6 am to get to the marathon massaging, but they managed. Sunday night was a very early night tho'.
Wild Weather
Friday July 1st, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
The last couple of days have brought some wild weather here on the east coast of Queensland. Right here on the Gold Coast we got almost 500 millimeters (half a meter) of rain in 12 hours from midnight until noon thursday. Combined with winds up to 80km/h this resulted in water coming in through our windows. That was ofcourse just a minor inconvenience compared to many people being flooded, and very many people could not get to schools and work because of flooded roads and canals.
The heavy downpour was however very welcome since there has been a very long draught period, and the water reserves were running low, and water restrictions had been implemented. Now the dams filled up pretty nicely within those 12 hours of rain. The last 3-4 days have been very stormy at nighttime, and the ocean has been wild with big waves.
Today is the first day when we are getting a little sun again. So hopefully it is over for this time. You are kindof stuck inside when the rain pours down like it has done lately. By the looks of it we can spend more time outdoors this weekend.
This weekend is the Gold Coast Marathon, and Christina is part of the official massage-crew. The school that she studies in, Australian College of Natural Medicine (ACNM), volunteers the students so they get some good practice.
It has been more than a month since my last post here. I will try and make more frequent posts in July.
Cassie's Birthday
Saturday May 28th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Today was Cassie's birthday. Her husband Roly had made secret plans for the day, and all he told us was to dress up nicely and be ready for pickup at 11am. So we did. We were picked up, and in the car on our way to location X everyone was driving Roly nuts with guesses about where we were going. We were driving quite far in the direction of Brisbane, so were all pretty much out of ideas by the time we got very close to our destination. Seing a roadsign Cassie suddenly clicked with the answer: Sirromet.
Sirromet is Queensland's largest and most highly awarded winery - winning numerous prestigious awards for their outstanding wines and facilities. The Mount Cotton headquarters, which is where Roly took us, combines a fully operating vineyard, winery, cellar door and restaurant in a location alive with breathtaking views, natural scenery and abundant wildlife.
Driving in to the winery we pulled up at the restaurant Lurleens. The restaurant looked very exclusive, and the surrounding vineyard looked fantastic. We took a couple of photos outside before we went inside. The inside looked if possible even more exclusive, and had a great atmosphere. Downstairs was set up for a wedding the same day, among all the winebarrels in the "wine production area". It was all very traditional winery style down there. Upstairs was a more exclusive and modern looking restaurant, in which Roly had our table reserved. It was clearly a good idea with a reservation, because soon after we had taken our seats pretty much the whole restaurant was filled up with dining guests. The food was some of the best food I have ever eaten (except Grandiosa..), and we all really enjoyed our meals. There was kangaroo on the menu, I was tossing between that and the clay pot chicken breast thingy, and opted for the latter. I have eaten kangaroo once before (also when Roly and Cassie were taking us to a restaurant. Woodchopper's in Mudgeeraba.). Kangaroo is very good meat, and I really enjoyed it. But today I chose the chicken. It was all good! :)
After the dinner we had a bit of a stroll around the beautiful area. We went to the cellar door and bought a couple of bottles of wine and a couple of pepper grinders. The pepper grinders were the ones they used in the restaurant. They looked exatly like a wine bottle. You twisted the neck of the bottle, and out came the pepper. So now we have one, and Cassie and Roly has one.
Upon leaving the restaurant something funny happened. Cassie is Christina's 12 year older sister, but they were asked if they were twins. Much appreciated by Cassie. Less appreciated by Christina. Enough said..
When driving out of the winery we stopped to take some photos of a wallaby that was grassing down by the wine-plant-thingies. A wallaby is essentially a smaller version of the kangaroo. When we stopped we realized that there were alot of wallabies all around where the wine plants were growing. The girls were making some inappropriate comments of the hanging nature, and size, of the wallaby's nuts, and then they laughed out loud in front of it. Hopefully it wasn't too badly scarred mentally.
On our way home we dropped Christina in at her work. She works for HeadWay looking after people with aquired brain injuries. She has a 24 hour shift from saturday afternoon until sunday afternoon.
We will be adding some photos from this trip soon, but since Christina has the camera in her bag I'll have to wait until she comes home.
Flat tire
Wednesday May 11th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I have had my bike for almost two years now, and have biked well over 4000 kilometers on it. I have seen that the back tire has been really worn out lately, and just been waiting for it to blow before I got a new one. Today when I came out of the gym and took the bike out of the bike-rack I realised that it was finally flat. Searching around the campus at the university I soon found out that the nearest bicycle shop was about 6 kilometers away. I thought about leaving the bike up there, and take the bus back home. Knowing myself it would have taken me weeks to get my finger out and actually get it fixed if I did that though. So I decided I'd try and get the bike to Mike's Bikes at Miami Beack. At first I considered the option of dragging the bike down there walking, but that would have taken me forever. So I pumped my back tire as much as I could and started biking. On the first go I made it about 1 kilometer before it was time for another pumping session. On the second 1.5 kilometers (I was biking faster). So after 5 pump-stops I made it to Mike's Bikes. They put on a new tire and replaced the tube. I also got a new set of break-pads, as the old ones were pretty much gone. Getting back on the bike again when it was all fixed I could notice how much that old tire had made my bike harder to ride. In the end the old tire had pretty much ripped along the side, and it made even the smoothest surface feel bumpy..
While I was in the bikeshop waiting for them to fix my bike, I was looking at some of the things they have there. One thing in particular that caught my attention was the Polar watches with heart rate monitors. They have models that can monitor both the speed of the bike and your heart rate. You can also connect them to your computer and transfer the information to the computer.
Brown Cheese Please!
Friday May 6th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
The last couple of days the weather has been changing pretty much every ten minutes. From rain to sun to rainstorm to thunderstorm to sun etc. However today we woke up with a clear sky and no black clouds lurking in the horizon. It was also notably warmer today, and I had to put on sunscreen for my afternoon beachwalk.
My office at home is pretty much complete now. I have a great desk from IKEA, an excellent office chair from OfficeWorks, my laptop and a norwegian keyboard that my boss sent me from Norway. Thus I haven't had any problems with a sore back lately. In the beginning I was sitting at our breakfast bench on barstools to work on my laptop. That was painful, and I constantly had a sore back. The last couple of days tho' I have been getting a headache. I suspect it can be because I am only using the screen on the laptop, which has very small writing, so it forces me to lean forward a bit and squint with my eyes to be able to read properly. So yesterday I ordered a new big screen online from an australian online computer store. I looked around to find the best offers for monitors online, and checked quite a few of the online shops in Australia. I couldn't really find any really good online shops here. I'm not sure if I'm just spoiled with the online computer stores we have in Norway, where it is very easy to find the products you want, and they are properly presented etc. Most of the stores down here look like something a computer-literate person could whip up within the timeframe of a weekend. Nevertheless I ordered from one of these shops in the hopes that they actually send me a computer monitor. Prices was quite similar to the prices back home, so I can't complain about that.
I remembered that some scandianavian friends of mine from last time I lived down here told me that they sold brown cheese in Coco's. I haven't heard of any other place they sell this down here. I told Christina this a while ago, and she must have remembered, because she went to Coco's for shopping yesterday. She bought a small block of brown cheese from Tine for me :) I had it for breakfast today with a toasted breadroll, and it was good to taste that norwegian taste again! Now we only need to find a place where they sell Grandiosa! ;) Other typical norwegian things they sell down here is Kaviar (a swedish brand), and Jarlsberg cheese (which is very expensive).
Rainy Day In Paradise
Monday May 2nd, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Today started like every other day for the last couple of weeks. Me and Christina did our morning walk on the beach, we had breakfast, and she headed off to school. I was starting to get ready for my bike-trip to the gym when I could hear the thundering start up. Soon it was pissing down with rain, and I gave up my gym-plans and got comfortable in my reading-chair with my book. I did some work, watched some Simpson-episodes, and talked to JT that called from Oslo. It was nice to talk to him again, and hear that him, Bronia and Kristin all are doing really great! :)
The rain lasted for a couple of hours, but finally it cleared up and the sun was shining again. By that time it was a little late for me to the gym because of work. Quite boring day actually, since we don't even get mail today. Today is a public holiday in Australia, and everything is closed. Maybe even the gym was closed, so the rain just saved me the trip back and forth to find out. They have a good system in Australia when it comes to public holidays that are on no particular weekday. If that public holiday happens to collide with the weekend, people get the following monday off. Someone should suggest that to the norwegian government.
The Pelican Report
Tuesday April 26th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
For the 9th day in a row this morning we went for a walk on the beach before Christina had to go to school. We both found it particularly hard to get up this morning. Maybe because yesterday was a public holiday here, and we slept in quite late. However, today while walking up the beach we saw something I haven't seen on the beach down here before. It was a huge pelican, I didn't know they were that big. It was flying just 40-50 cm over the water just where the waves wash up on the sand. It barely moved it's wings, and was just gliding lazily along with a relaxed look on it's face. It seemed like it had that relaxed australian attitude down pat. Both me and Christina wished we had our camera with us, so we could have taken photos of it. It flew quite fast, so we probably wouldn't have had time to fire up the old camera anyway. So we both agreed we wished we had a new and really fast camera like the one my uncle Jørn has. And in turn we wished we had brought that camera if we had it.
Christina went to school, and I stayed home researching some topics I've been looking into for work. I went for another 2 hour walk/jog after 2pm, as the sun is not so intense later in the afternoon. I came straight home from that walk and started working.
It has been a good breeze on the beach lately (autumn is like that down here). This has attracted a lot of kite surfers to the beach. Kite surfing looks really cool, and possibly quite difficult. If you don't know what kitesurfing is, check it the definition at Wikipedia. I wouldn't mind having a go at it. I think it is quite expensive to buy the equipment, so it is probably a good idea to try it before buying anything. On that note, I would also really like to learn to surf on a normal surfboard, just on the waves. And that is not such a huge investment, so I might get myself a cheap beginners board sometime soon. The waves have been extremely good ever since we came down here. Must have been a lot of stormy weather out there somewhere.
Sunburnt on ANZAC day
Monday April 25th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I got really sunburnt today. Since today is Anzac day in Australia, which is a public holiday, we got up a little later than normally for our morning walk on the beach. As usual i slapped on a bit of sunscreen around my t-shirt and shorts before we headed out. After a little while I thought I'd take off my t-shirt to get a little bit of tanning action. I could feel that the sun was much stronger than it usually is very early in the morning, but didn't think that much of it. Since we also walked for close to two hours today, as opposed to our normal 45-60 minutes, by the time we got home I was a nice hot pink. And by now "hot" seems to become the right word. Sunburnt skin always feels way too hot for my preferred comfort. Still it is not quite as bad as last summer when we went summer-skiing on the glacier in Stryn with Roly and Cassie.
Anzac day is a memorial day for the ANZACs (The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) who originally was an army corps of Australian and New Zealand troops who fought in World War I at Gallipoli, in the Middle East and on the Western Front. Anzac Day is annually celebrated in memory of those soldiers who died in war. It is celebrated each year by both countries on April 25th, the date of the first landing at Gallipoli in 1915 on a beach which was subsequently to become known as Anzac Cove.
Christina has spent most of the day studying, and I have read a book that I am currently working my way through. The rest of the afternoon and night I will be working, as today is not a public holiday in Norway..
Sunny Sunday
Sunday April 24th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
The IP phone is working again. It turned out I had the wrong adapter here. While living in Oslo we had lots of trouble with the IP phone, so we had a total of three different adapters sent to us. As it turned out they all worked fine, and the trouble was caused by something else, we sent two of them back. Apparently the one we kept was not the one that we were supposed to keep, and as such is was disabled a couple of days ago. Telio however realised this when I sent them a description of my problem, and everything is working fine again now. I can really recommend using Telio as a IP phone provider. Price-wise it is very much better than Telenor, as it lets you call to all home phones in Norway, western Europe and north america for free. It also has the best rates to other countries and mobile phones. We are using it in Australia for calling to Norway for free. Using the australian monopolist Telstra to call Norway is ridiculously expensive, and we are saving tons of money on this. We probably wouldn't be calling home much if we didn't have it. I also use it alot for work.
Christina is in Logan with Gemma today. Gemma's car needed service, and Christina's brother in law's brother Nick is a car mechanic, so they went up to his place to get it serviced properly. Me and Christina got up early again today and had our daily walk on the beach, making it 7 days in a row that we have managed to do this. "Only" 23 more days until we have completed our 30 day trial.
We were looking through the paper today, and saw that they had cheap tickets to Sydney. Since we had been planning to go down to Sydney in June for Petra's wedding we thought we might try and get tickets when they were cheap. Christina called Petra to check the dates for the wedding, and it turns out we had misunderstood a thing or two. The wedding is set for next year.. not this year. So we are in no hurry to buy those tickets just yet.
The weather is perfect here today (again) with 26 degrees and sun from a clear sky, so I'll head out now to enjoy it!
Added Sydney Photos
Sunday April 24th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I just added some of the photos we took while we were in Sydney on our way back from Norway to Australia.
Added Wedding Photos And London Photos
Saturday April 23rd, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I just added the photos from last night's wedding for Rebecca and Derek. I Also added photos from our visit in London with Anoushka and her parents in february.
The wedding last night was a big success, and they got married just as planned! Everyone had a great time as the boat sailed up to Sovereign Island and back. There was plenty to drink and eat, and everyone was in a happy mood.
Have a look at the photos under the 'Pictures' section!
Another Morning On The Beach (4 out of 30?)
Thursday April 21st, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Today we did our 4th day in a row getting up really early in the morning and having a 1 hour walk on the beach. We have been inspired to try and do this for 30 days in a row by a challenge from Steve Pavlina. He has a webpage on Personal Growth, and writes many inspiring articles and blogs. His theory in this particular challenge is that when you want to change something in your life, often it seems impossible to make such a commitment for the rest of your life. So when he considers to change something in his life, he decides to give it a 30-day trial period. At the end of the 30-day trial period he evaluates the results, and decides whether to give up that change, extend the trial-period to 60 or 90 days, or take it up as a "habit" on a more permanent basis. Most often when you want to change something in your life, it is because you know that you will more than likely benefit from this change. At the end of your 30-day trial period you will then have a good chance of feeling very good about the results that you have obtained with you trial, and it may not any longer seem like such a huge commitment to make that change permanent. I think everyone could benefit from reading some of the things he has to say about personal development and a variety of other topics that he covers.
Tomorrow we are going to a wedding, so today we were shopping for a wedding present before Christina had to go to work. She has got a part-time job in a small café in Southport, so we went to Australia Fair which also is in Southport. We rode there together on our bikes, because we are trying to get a little excercise. I was psychologically prepared for hours of walking from shop to shop and all that stuff that usually comes with shopping-trips with your better half... So when we found the perfect gift in the first shop we went into, I was very pleased to note that the shopping trip was over. Except ofcourse the couple of shops Christina made me go to to kill some time before she had to get off to work. While Christina was at work I took the present home, and went to the gym at Bond University.
Phone problems
Wednesday April 20th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
We have an IP-phone from Telio as our Norwegian homephone. While we were living in Oslo we always had problems with the stability of this phone. We could never really figure out if this problem was caused by our ISP (Internet Service Provider) UPC, our IP-phone adapter, or the Telio IP-phone service. Telio sent us in all 3 new adapters for us to try, so we pretty much eliminated the possibility of it being the adapter. Still we didn't know if the problem was the actual IP-phone service or our internet provider. When we moved to Australia we took the IP-phone with us. We didn't quite know what to expect of the service quality. Would there be a noticeable delay? Broken connections? In fact, for the first 2 months down here, the quality have been EXCELLENT! The service has been completely stable, and not once in these two months have a phonecall been disconnected. No delays, no problems of any sort!
Until today... today the whole thing is just dead. I cannot get a dialtone or anything. At first I suspected that the adapter might have been malfunctioning after some power-cable swaparounds I did in my office this morning. When checking the adapter however it seems it is functioning as expected, it receives an IP address from my router, and I can communicate with the adapter through my phone. I have contacted Telio about the matter, and I'm avaiting their response. I also have to contact my ISP here in Australia, CyberOne, and check if they have done any changes that could have affected my ability to connect to the IP-phone service.
I submitted my norwegian tax report for 2004 online today. I am a big fan of doing things online, and the new system where everyone in Norway can submit their tax report online is a really good thing. I usually stress out like hell the last day before the deadline having to deliver my tax report to the tax office. Living in Australia, and having to send it on time to get back to Norway.. Online is the thing!
The forest on top of my head got a badly needed trimming today! It has been growing wild for a long time now, and I was starting to look quite hobo-ish. One of the advantages of working from home is that I don't have to look presentable at all at work. Christina's good friend Rebecca is a hairdresser, and she did a really good job. She is also getting married on friday, and we are invited to her wedding. They are going to get married on a nice boat, and we'll sail up and down the coast for a couple of hours. We are really looking forward to that :)
Also today we both got up early and had a 1 hour long walk on the beach. It is the third day in a row, and we are finding it a really great way to start our days!
Early Beach Walk
Tuesday April 19th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Me and Christina have had a good day today. We both got up at 5 this morning and went for a 45 minute walk on the beach together. It is a nice walk, and it lets us see the sun rise out of the ocean. When we got down on the beach just after 5 there was noone there but us. Twenty minutes later other people started coming down there, and soon a lot of people was doing their morning walk down there. It seems that australian people are a little different from norwegian people in that they actually get up really early and go out for a walk before they have to get on with their daily duties (read: work). It is really nice to start the day in this way, and it sure is easier getting out of bed knowing that the weather is great, and that you only need a pair of shorts, no shoes and noshirt (and certainly no snowsuits, hats and gloves as we do in Norway at certain times of the year).
I am working at nighttime, so it also gives me and Christina a chance to spend some time together before she leaves for school. When she comes home from school, I am usually very busy with work.
Christina has two job interviews tomorrow. I hope everyone crosses their fingers for her, and that she nails whichever one she wants the most!
Added Random Australian Photos
Tuesday April 19th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I have added another album to the photo-section. This album contains random photos that we have taken since we came to Australia.
Added Bangkok Photos
Tuesday April 19th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I have just added a couple of photos from our holiday in Bangkok on our way from Norway to Australia. There are many more photos to come, but I only had time to add a few this time. It takes some time to come up with a name for each photo and resizing them to the correct size etc.
All settled in
Monday April 18th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
We have been very slack with the updates here since we arrived on the Gold Coast. We will try and change that, and keep posting photos and small news from our everso eventful lifes..
We have now gotten quite comfortable in our new appartment on the beach in Surfers Paradise. We moved in 6 weeks ago after staying for a couple of weeks with Christina's sister Cassie and her husband Roly. We have published a couple of photos from the appartment. There should be more photos coming soon. (Right now there seems to be a problem with displaying the photos..)
Christina is studying really hard at shool, and she is doing really good. As she is studying massage this means I have to cope with being her homework :) I have set up an office in the second bedroom of our appartment, since I am now working from home. I am really happy with the situation of being able to work from over here. I don't think I have ever been more productive than I am now, and I find it is easier to focus on the most important tasks I have. I work mainly Norwegian hours which means I start working in the afternoon local time and finish after midnight I have most morning and days available for other activities. This has led to me going back to old habits of regular excercise. I have joined the gym in my old university as an alumni member, and I bike there at least 3 times a week to work out. I have also gone to the university library a couple of times to get some good books.
We will be going through our photos from Bangkok and Sydney and publish them one of these days. We also have a few photos taken since we arrived here that we can publish so that you can see where we live.
Photo problems
Monday April 18th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
There seems to be a problem with displaying the photos. Hopefully it will soon be working again.
Relaxation Day
Tuesday February 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Sunday we had decided to have a relaxing day in the hotel. So we got up at our usual 10 o'clock and had breakfast. We spent a couple of hours by the pool. Again it was a very hot day, so it was wonderful to be able to jump in the pool whenever it got too hot to handle. When we'd had enough of the heat we went back to the room and slept for two hours.
We woke up around five thirty, and relaxed a little more before we called Anthony and Dianne to get some more Bangkok survival tips. Then we headed for the markets again. Shopping never gets boring for some.. We found some nice clothing that was really cheap, and some more gifts. When we headed back to the hotel we took a tuk-tuk. Finally we got to ride with one of those funny things! We had a one hour foot massage each in our "usual" massage place just up the road from our hotel before we settled in for the night in our hotel.
Another big day
Tuesday February 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Saturday we woke up a little later than we had planned, and Christina's scream jumpstarted my heart a little too much for my taste. We jumped into our clothes, and just managed to eat our breakfast before the breakfast restaurant closed for the day. We went straight from breakfast to the pool. I jumped in the pool and paddled around for a while, while Christina stayed on one of the sunbeds as she found it too cold. The one bad thing about the poolarea in our hotel is that it doesn't get much sun before noon. It is situated on the 14th level of the hotel, on the roof of the bottom part of the building as the building becomes narrower from the 14th floor and upwards. After noon however the pool area is bathed in sun until late afternoon.
After I had had enough of my morning swim, we went back to our room to prepare for our day. We had agreed the night before that we were going to the Grand Palace as our main goal for the day. Christina had done her home work with this, so we knew we had to wear long pants inside the palace. Wearing our shorts and with extra clothing in our bag we headed for the city. We walked a little up the road, and caught a taxi from there. We are a little hesitant at catching the cabs just in front of our hotel, since they seem to hassle us less when we're consistent at not taking taking them up on their offers.
We got to the Grand Palace and payed the 120Bt charge (20NOK, AU$4) for the taxi. Inside the we came to a little house where you could borrow pants or shoes, and buy socks if you failed to meet their dresscode. Christina needed to borrow a pair of shoes, other than that our bag had everything we needed, and we changed to the proper clothes. Somehow I think that most of the reason why they force you to wear so much clothes, is that they want to make your stay as unpleasant and short as possible. That way they can push more people through their gates every day. If this ain't the reason, then I'm sure it has something to do with the profitability of all the little shops where they sell juice and water.
All dressed up we headed for the sights, and were met by gold, gold and more gold. Everything seemed to be covered in gold. Where there wasn't gold there were lots of colorful artwork in mother of pearl and other shiny materials. We walked around for a while taking photos of each other in front of various gold coated items. It got very hot, so when we saw a temple where you had to take your shoes off to get it we got rid of our shoes and headed for the entrance. Outside the entrance there was a big bowl of water, and two big plates of lotus flowers. People picked up the flowers, dipped them in the water, and whacked themselves and others in the head with the flowers. Sheepish as we are we found this too irresistible to pass up. After a bit of lotus-wacking (which was kind of refreshing because of the cooling effect of the water) we headed inside the temple. There were lots of people in there, and we were immediately instructed to take a "seat" on the floor. We were sitting there for a while looking around on all the artwork and the small golden buddha on top of a whole lot of stuff in the very front of the temple. After a little while my feet started feeling a bit cramped by me sitting on them, so I put them out in front of me. Not a good idea. I hadn't even finished my relieved sigh from the newfound comfort before a dude was all over me telling me to put my feet back. I had obviously offended the buddha. We left the temple shortly after.
We wandered around for a bit more, grabbing a mango juice on the way, and found our way to a buddha museum of some kind. We explored the museum to some extent, but both of us were quite buddha'd out, and beat from the heat and walking so we decided to head back to the hotel. We went to the changing house and changed to more comfortable clothes for the climate, before we got in a cab. The taxi ride home was very slow and boring, as the traffic in Bangkok seems to be constantly at it's busiest.
Arriving at our hotel we ordered internet for the room. We settled on a 24hr service that would let us update the homepage with pictures and blogs. When the IT people came to the room with our VDSL modem we were just on our way down to the pool, so I decided to install it later in the evening. (Later it appeared that the VDSL-thingy didn't work for our room, so we had to get a wireless solution, that we still haven't gotten up and running..) We spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool area, alternating between getting wet and drying off. As the sun was getting lower we left the pool area. Christina went to the hairdresser to get her hair washed and blowdryed while I was relaxing in the room.
Around 8 at night we headed for the market. We had decided that this time we'd take a tuk-tuk to the market. Normally they are everywhere trying to get us to ride with them. However when we actually wanted one, there was none to be seen. We walked along the road for a few blocks before we just gave up and settled for the less exiting taxi alternative. In the markets we shopped a few gifts and some things for ourselves. We took the sky train back towards the hotel, and jumped off one stop earlier than necessary to check out some more shopping opportunities that we had seen from the train earlier. It also proved to be quite a busy street for another kind of business as well. After this we called it the night.
17 hour day slept away
Tuesday February 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Thursday started in the air over eastern europe somewhere, and ended in Bangkok Thailand. As we caught up with several timezones this day was only 17 hours long. The first 5 hours we slept on the plane (yes, this time we actually managed to sleep on the plane). The next couple of hours was spent making our way through the airport to our hotel, where we again (after ordering dinner from roomservice) slept another 6 hours and woke up around midnight.
We were flying with the australian airline Qantas this time. Qantas made a very good impression on us with excellent service, good entertainment (through the monitor built into the back of each seat, offering games, movies, news, etc), and pretty good food for airplane food. The seats weren't too squishy either. We had our food when coming on board the flight, and soon started watching movies, comedies etc on the entertainment thingy. It didn't last long before we started bobbing our heads to Mr. Sandman's sweet music, and put on the complimentary cotton sunglasses that we had received. Only once during the night we woke up for a bit, before falling back to sleep and staying asleep until they started serving breakfast onboard. Two and a half hours later we landed in Bangkok. On the way out of the plane and into the airport terminal we got a whiff of the hot air that was soon going to meet us and our London wintertime attires. We collected our luggage, and went through the instructions of Anthony, Christina's brother in law, of how to survive in Bangkok. So when a nicely dressed man came up to us offering us to drive us to our hotel, we declined this kind offer. The next guy approaching however met the criteria we were given, and we were in a taxi (Volvo) on our way to the hotel.
The hotel (The Windsor Suites Hotel) is a very, VERY, nice hotel. Thank you again Anthony for helping us with your local knowledge! We were checked in to our room on the 30th floor (there are only 33 floors here, and the 32nd is where we eat breakfast). We ordered fried rice with chicken from room-service and fell asleep. Waking up around midnight we felt fresh again, and decided to have a look around the hotel and the neighbourhood. As most amenities in the hotel was shut for the night (except the disco and bars) we headed out in the streets. We didn't get far though before we ended up in a german bar across the road. We had a bourbon with coke there at a pleasantly low price, before we picked up some stuff from 7-Eleven and went back to our room. In lack of any entertainment we watched a movie on the laptop in bed before retiring for the night.
London day 2
Tuesday February 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
As we still had a couple of hours left on our site seeing ticket and a free ferry ride, we hopped on the train and headed for Waterloo station. The peir for the boat ride was not to far from the station, but unfortunatly we arrived seconds to late as we saw our boat sailing away! After much deliberation we all decided we were just to blood tired to continue in the city...so on the train back to Hampton we went. It was nice to see were our good friend Anoushka grew up as we had to take a BIG RED BUS and a brief walk from the station to her house. Good timimg as it seems , we arrived the same time as her parents and they all took us out the best pub lunch in London. The lovely establishment was in a place called Sheperton. Rolling out of there with full tummies we headed back to Anoushka's and loaded up the car. We were dropped off at Heathrow and had another sad good bye to our dear friend Anoushka. Thankyou Anoushka, Maya and Shrie for your wonderful hospitality and kindness. Ahead was a 11 hr plane flight to Bangkok....
London
Tuesday February 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
After a long week end of packing, cleaning and saying our goodbyes, we jumped on the plane to London. We were met by Anoushka and her dad, Shrie. Anoushka was kind to be our tour guide for our visit. We went on the 'underground' subway to piccadilly circus and walked up to the Australian Embassy, where Dag Joar picked up his Visa and became a temporary resident of Australia. YIPPIE!
Due to having a short stay in London we all decided on taking one of the bus tours available in London. It cost £16 and this enabled us to get on and off throughout the tour in London for 24hrs (including a free ferry ride on the thames river). The tour bus was interesting and it had a history lesson for us all as we toured the sites of London.Some of the places the bus showed us were,Trafalgar square,Hyde park,Tower Bridge, Tower of London and St Pauls Cathedral. After freezing our arses off on the top of the bus we got off near Hyde Park and dragged poor old DJ to Harrods!!! After alot of looking around the food hall and using the fancy toilets we called it a day. We were tired and hungry so we all went back to Anoushka's house and had the local speciality of fish and chips with Maya, Shrie and Anoushka. DJ and Shrie then had to wet their whistle, and Shrie showed DJ the fine art of tasting a good whiskey. A good night sleep was had by all!
Moving to Australia - visa approved
Monday January 24th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Me and Christina are moving to Australia next week. Things have been quite hectic lately with my migration application, renting out our appartment in Oslo, packing things for sending to Australia and so on. We sent our things today, including our two bikes, which will be an all-year-round excercise opportunity in Australia as opposed to here in cold Norway. I got some good news today as Klaus from the Australian embassy in Berlin called me to let me know that my migration-application to Australia was approved. Now I only have to pick it up in London on our way around the globe.
We will be leaving Oslo on tuesday February 1st early in the morning, so we get to London quite early as well. This leaves us with pretty much two full days in London before we head for Bangkok on wednesday night. We arrive in Bangkok on thursday, where we have booked a hotel for 5 nights. Christina's brother in law Anthony has fixed us a good deal with a top notch hotel there, so we are looking forward to massages, spas, underwater music, pool and warm weather :) Originally we planned to spend 2 weeks travelling around Thailand, but since the tsunami hit, we thought 5 days in Bangkok would be plenty for this time. We know that there are plenty of places that are (physically) unaffected by the tragedy, but we hope to return for a longer holiday there some time later. So we get to have a good look around Bangkok. Tuesday February 8th we head off from Bangkok to Sydney, where we will spend another couple of days before we head for our final destination for this time: the Gold Coast. I've been in Sydney a couple of times before, and I really enjoy being there, so I am really looking forward to that.
When we hit the Gold Coast things will start getting hectic, as we have to find a place to stay. We will be living with Christina's sister Cassie, and brother in law Roly, until we find a place of our own. But it will be quite urgent for me to find a place fast, and set up an office that I can work from. I am keeping my Norwegian job, just working from Australia, which I am really happy about. I like my job alot, and this is a great opportunity to keep that job, and still experience a totally different lifestyle. Christina will be starting her studies just two weeks after we arrive as well, so there is alot of things going on.
More pictures
Saturday January 8th, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
I have added some more pictures. Under the photo album "Northern Norway Trip June 2004" i have added 19 photos from the trip me, Christina, Cassie and Roly did this last summer. These photos are all from the northern part of the trip, more photos from the rest of our Norway Tour will be added later.
I also added 27 photos from when Jon-Thomas, Øivind, Hildegun and Ola came to visit me in Australia. There are many more photos to come in this album, but it takes a while to add them all, so it will be completed later. It was funny to look at those photos again, since it has been a while since I last did. We had a lot of fun! :)
Back in Oslo
Sunday January 2nd, 2005 Author: Dag Joar
Me and Christina just came back to Oslo after spending christmas holidays in Narvik with my parents. After nearly two weeks of heavy traditional Norwegian christmas dinners, it was nice to settle for good old Grandiosa today. It seems we have to try and make 2005 a year of physical excercise to make up for all that heavy food. Tomorrow we're both back to work, and we have to break the habit of sleeping till after lunch..
Happy New Year to everyone!!
Working on new homepage
Saturday December 25th, 2004 Author: Dag Joar
We are now working on putting up a new homepage. As we have quite some time during christmas vaction to do such activities, hopefully by the new year it will be quite complete.